Azure Migration Services and Modernization Scenarios

#FocusOnBestPractices

Cloud Migration has become a business priority. It is no longer a question of “if” or” when,” the question today has become “how?” Organizations are digitally transforming themselves to drive business value and enhance customer experiences.

Companies are moving workloads to the cloud for cost savings and to take advantage of cloud innovations. Many are creating new applications in the cloud.

Microsoft developed Azure Migrate to help remove cost and complexity from the migration process for common customer scenarios. Azure Migrate also offers a suite of tools and support through Azure Migration Services to ensure a smooth transition while minimizing disruptions and maximizing efficiency.

Here are the common migration and modernization scenarios:

1. Cloud Migrate Windows and SQL Server

Migrating to Windows Server and SQL Server on Azure provides customers with the most cost-effective, frictionless way to move to the cloud.

Use Cases of Azure Migration Services:
Pay less, get more Modernize and scale with flexibility Update and protect applications
by running any part of your business in the cloud — on your terms and timeline
by migrating server apps to Azure and bridging existing infrastructure at your own pace
with unmatched security and business continuity to protect from threats
Spend less time managing servers – that are running locally and more time adding business value.
Access enterprise-grade server infrastructure – without having to run your own on-premises servers and storage by running Windows Server and Azure Virtual Machines.
Guard against threats – using built-in security features across on-premises and cloud deployments.
Respond quickly to changes – with the ability to add capacity during peak seasons and reduce it when you need less.
Migrate business critical apps – with surprising ease when you’re ready and at your own pace, by migrating one, a few, or all your apps at once.
Stay up and running – with full backup and recovery to the cloud.
Pay only for what you use – for short or seasonal cloud needs or pay a predictable rate for always-on critical services.
Get unlimited innovation – by building new apps on Azure to better serve your customers — such as web apps with chat bats.
Make app access easy – With secure single sign-on, employees can safely access their apps and devices from anywhere.
Manage cloud costs – with Azure tools that easily track utilization and follow cost savings recommendations.
Simplify management of Windows Server anywhere – by using Windows Admin Center to manage Windows Server in Azure and on your own servers.
Protect apps running Windows and SQL Server – by upgrading to the latest version in Azure or stay protected with 3 more years of extended security updates.

2. Modernize to Azure Virtual Desktop

Enable secure remote work for a hybrid workplace.

  • Deliver the only multi-session Windows 10/11 experience.
  • Enable optimizations for Microsoft 365 Apps for the enterprise.
  • Stream apps to deliver SaaS solutions to your employees and customers.
  • Deploy and scale in minutes.
  • Manage with 1st party, Citrix, or VMware management solutions.
  • Flexibility and control.
  • Data residency and geo requirements.
  • Remote app streaming.
  • Specialized GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) and HPC(High Performance Computing) workloads.
  • Scalable computing and storage to optimize for cost and experience.

Benefits

  • Platform of your choice – Connect from any device Of your choice (Microsoft Windows, MacOS/iOS, HTML5, Android).
  • Windows differentiation – Like-local Microsoft Windows experience, Extensive support for devices.
  • Enhanced protocol – Support for Windows Hello for Business, dynamically adapts to bandwidth utilization.
  • Containerized User Profiles – Containerized user profiles (FSLogix) with fast VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) load times.
  • Native Office 365 performance – Uncompromised Microsoft Office 365 email and calendar performance with real-time Outlook search. Persistent and non-persistent environments.
  • Microsoft Teams enhancements – Best conferencing and media experience with multimedia redirection capability and high-performance, low latency audio and video calling.

3. Drive DevOps adoption with GitHub and Visual Studio

Deliver fast, efficient product innovation by using Microsoft Azure DevOps with GitHub and Microsoft Visual Studio—unifying the people, processes, and products that will enable continuous delivery of value to your end users. Using the principles of DevSecOps—the evolution of DevOps, overcome the challenge of speed vs. control in a competitive market while leaning into security. Unlock the full potential of your development pipeline by embracing cloud migration, which allows you to leverage the advantages of Microsoft Azure migration services.

Microsoft Azure is the cloud with developer services built in and GitHub is building on this foundation to become Microsoft’s core DevOps Platform and Visual Studio is a developer environment used for software development to edit, debug, and build code.

Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are used by tens of millions of developers every month

  • These tools help developers to:
  • Navigate, write, and fix your code fast
  • Debug, Professional file, and diagnose with ease
  • Write higher-quality code with comprehensive testing tools built-in
  • And be agile, use version control, and collaborate efficiently
  • When implementing open-source practices, such as reviewing source code in pull requests, developers are forced to leave their editors to use a simplified web interface or third-party review tool
  • With Visual Studio’s pull request extension, developers can collaborate, manage pull request, and review source code changes where it was written – directly inside their favorite editor.

Leverage Microsoft DevOps with GitHub to deliver fast, efficient innovation

Product innovation

  • Improved app performance, scalability, and resiliency in the cloud.
  • Multilevel collaboration and expertise sharing.
  • Autonomous innovation & project management.

Delivery Speed

  • Stronger performance with faster build times.
  • Continuous integration.
  • Code tests and staged environment releases.

Flexibility & control

  • Any language, any platform, any cloud.
  • Control and support over your entire cloud state.
  • Management at every stage of app development.

Security

  • Code protection with end-to-end security.
  • Automatic governance policy checks & validations enforced post-deployment.
  • Vulnerability reviews and extended support.

4. Modernize .NET and Java apps with PaaS, low code, and managed databases

Microsoft App Service allows customers to use popular frameworks like .NET, Java, Ruby, PHP, or Python to quickly build, deploy, and scale web apps meeting rigorous, enterprise-grade performance, security, and compliance requirements and giving customers a fully managed platform for their operational and monitoring tasks. Azure SQL DB provides managed, scalable, intelligent SQL in the cloud to support the delivery of powerful, seamless performance.

.NET on Azure

Drive high-end customer experiences with lightning-fast innovation, elastic scalability, and greater performance by modernizing .NET apps with Microsoft App Service and Azure SQL DB.

Continuous innovation and elastic scalability

  • Deliver powerful, seamless performance with Azure SQL DB for a managed, scalable SQL in the cloud - Shift your SQL Server workloads to the cloud to get the combined performance, security, and analytics of SQL Server with flexibility and the hybrid connectivity of Azure at 100 percent code compatibility.
  • Transform customer engagement with cross-device experiences - Get a consistent, unified experience across your entire SQL portfolio and a full range of deployment options from edge to cloud.
  • Employ flexible, open hybrid cloud migration solutions - Build and deploy solutions in a public or private cloud—enable consistent user experiences with a common identity.

Migration efficiency and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO)

  • Migrate web apps to the cloud with ease using Azure App Service Migration Assistant - Automatically migrate from on-premises to the cloud with minimal or no code changes. Leverage Azure migration services to transition your web applications to the cloud.
  • Bring your code or container using the framework language of your choice - Use popular frameworks like .NET, Java, Ruby, PHP, or Python to build and deploy -- increase developer productivity with tight integration of Visual Studio Code/Visual Studio.
  • Free-up data center space, reduce capital expenditures on existing apps, and decrease TCO by up to 30 percent - Maximize your existing on-premises investments when you migrate your SQL Sewer databases to Azure while getting a single view of all SQL databases, virtual machines, pools, and instances.

Enterprise-grade security

  • Protect against threats through vulnerability scans and access control - Identify new threats and respond quickly with services that are informed by real-time global cybersecurity intelligence delivered at a cloud scale.
  • Employ full visibility into your environment and app telemetry - Perform intelligent and interactive live troubleshooting with App Service diagnostics and view end-to-end health with Azure Monitor/Application Insights.
  • Streamline and automate security checks and enforce compliance requirements - Automate security checks with cloud-native technologies, run intelligent threat detection/protection in real time, and put fine-grained guardrails at every layer from the metal to the container image—reducing the risk of breach.

Java on Azure

Modernize or build new applications with tools and frameworks of your choice.

Wherever you are in Java—from Java EE/Jakarta EE to Spring and microservices—Azure supports your workloads and processes with an abundance of choice. Unload infrastructure hardware and software management to Azure with Azure App Service, Azure Spring Cloud, Azure Kubernetes Service, and fully managed databases so you can focus on writing code. Quickly add services and capabilities like performance monitoring, secrets management, and AI as your needs expand.

Differentiated value proposition and core capabilities:

  • Azure has more compliance certifications than any other cloud provider.
  • Azure has more regions than any other cloud provider.
  • Cloud platform with the most fully managed hosting options for Java— Tomcat, JBoss EAP, and Spring Cloud.
  • Only cloud platform with hyperscale PostgreSQL database.
  • Authentication across cloud and on-premises environments with Azure Active Directory.
  • Built-in security controls across code, delivery pipelines, app runtimes, and database.

Market context and customer benefits - Realize value by choosing Azure for your Java modernization.

We have seen a significant shift in how customers approach their application modernization initiatives:

  • Providing developers access to the right tools that are integrated with their cloud platform is more important than ever. A recent GitLab survey found that 55% of developers use 5 or more tools in their development process.
  • There is a strong sense of urgency in going digital which is driving demand for tools and services that can deliver ‘faster time to market’. In fact, applications today would expect 7x faster release cycles than 10 years ago. With the changed macroenvironment, there is now increased focus on finding opportunities to ‘reduce cost’. Per Gartner, there will be a 7% decline in IT spend in 2020.
  • Third, over the last few years, many businesses have increasingly had to deal with data security issues. In fact, in 2019, there was a 17% YoY increase in data breaches in the USA. Now, as more and more businesses go online, almost every customer is taking a hard look at the reliability and security of their infrastructure and data assets. They are also embracing the idea of ‘multi-layered security’ and in many cases, this alone is becoming the key driver of moving their apps and data assets to the cloud.

5. Win Hybrid with Arc and Stack HCI

Azure Arc

Microsoft Azure Arc offers simplified management, faster app development, and consistent Azure services. Easily organize, govern, and secure Windows, Linux, SQL Server, and Kubernetes clusters across data centers, the edge, and multi cloud environments right from Azure. Architect, design, and build cloud-native apps anywhere without sacrificing central visibility and control. Get Azure innovation and cloud migration benefits by deploying unified Azure data, applications, and machine learning services on any infrastructure.

Today, companies struggle to control and govern increasingly complex environments that extend across data centers, multiple clouds, and edges. Each environment and cloud possesses its own set of management tools, and new DevOps and ITOps operational models can be hard to implement across resources.

Connect with us to explore how Azure Arc, combined with cloud migration, simplifies governance and management by delivering a consistent multi-cloud and on-premises management platform.

Azure Arc provides a centralized, unified way to:

  • Manage your entire environment together by projecting your existing non-Azure and/or on-premises resources into Azure Resource Manager.
  • Manage virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and databases as if they are running in Azure.
  • Use familiar Azure services and management capabilities, regardless of where they live.
  • Continue using traditional ITOps while introducing DevOps practices to support new cloud native patterns in your environment.
  • Configure custom locations as an abstraction layer on top of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters and cluster extensions.

Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack HCI is a hyper-converged infrastructure host platform integrated with Azure. Run Windows and Linux virtual machines on-premises with existing IT skills and familiar tools. Delivered as an Azure subscription service, Azure Stack HCI is always up-to-date and can be installed on your choice of server hardware.

Why Azure Stack HCI?

There are many reasons customers choose Azure Stack HCI, including:

  • It's familiar for Hyper-V and server admins, allowing them to leverage existing virtualization and storage concepts and skills.
  • It works with existing data center processes and tools such as Microsoft System Center, Active Directory, Group Policy, and PowerShell scripting.
  • It works with popular third-party backup, security, and monitoring tools.
  • Flexible hardware choices allow customers to choose the vendor with the best service and support in their geography.
  • Joint support between Microsoft and the hardware vendor improves the customer experience.
  • Seamless, full-stack updates make it easy to stay current.
  • A flexible and broad ecosystem gives IT professionals the flexibility they need to build a solution that best meets their needs.
  • You also can manage container workloads by deploying Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI (AKS on HCI).

6. Migrate Linux and OSS DBs

Microsoft Azure supports most common Linux distributions and offers fully managed community databases with the best TCO in the industry. Give your customers choices and help them manage workloads securely and conveniently while enabling integrated access to the full suite of capabilities that Azure has to offer. Leverage Azure migration services to transition your Linux-based workloads to the cloud for optimal performance.

Linux is the fastest-growing platform on Azure

  • Linux-based images comprise 60% of Azure Marketplace images
  • Top 100 Microsoft customers deploy Linux workloads on Azure
  • More than 50% of VM cores run Linux on Azure of Azure Marketplace
  • Azure Tuned Kernels provide 25% faster network throughput

Azure supports running Linux applications and workloads in the cloud with virtual Linux infrastructure and Linux-based service platforms. As part of your modernization strategy, consider incorporating cloud migration to Azure. This enables organizations to seamlessly transition their Linux-based applications and workloads to the cloud, leveraging Azure migration services.

With Linux infrastructure as a service (IaaS), you can deploy Linux applications to Azure virtual machines that run the Linux flavor of your choice. Choose from among thousands of ready-to-run images across multiple Linux distributions, many with preloaded software packages, or create and deploy your own custom images. Specify and provision your virtual machines and virtual network infrastructure with Azure Resource Manager, and scale and load-balance workloads across hundreds of identical VM instances with scale sets. Add value to your Linux-based applications with Azure services. Migrate on-premises workloads directly to Azure VMs with Azure Migrate. Azure migration services streamline the transition of your on-premises Linux workloads to Azure VMs.

Alternatively, you can use Linux-based service platforms (PaaS) like Azure App Service and Azure Kubernetes Service, which provide Linux compatibility. Azure PaaS can simplify the management and maintenance of your Linux-based applications without sacrificing the flexibility and control that a Linux foundation provides.

Opensource offerings from Azure

Regardless of your choice, Azure provides many services, features, and tools you can integrate with your applications. These Azure migration services can help you reduce your maintenance burden, accelerate development, and improve your visibility into your workloads.

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